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The Supreme Court
has dismissed the review petition filed by the Central Government wherein the
government had prayed that the benefits of pension arising out of the
rectification of anomalies of pre-2006 pensioners should be granted from
September 2012 and not January 2006.

Consequently, all
affected defence and civilian pensioners would now be entitled to arrears with
effect from January 1, 2006, the date of implementation of the Sixth Pay
Commission (SPC), and not just for the past about 14 months as was the
government’s intention.

After the plea of
the Central Government praying for release of pension arrears from September
2012 rather than January 2006 was dismissed by the Supreme Court in July this
year, the Department of Pensions and Pensioners’ Welfare (DoPPW) had referred
the file for further action to the law and finance ministries, which then
directed the DoPPW to file a review petition.

The controversy on
implementation of the SPC recommendations had been simmering for defence as
well as civilian pensioners since January 2006. The issue involved the
interpretation whether pension would be based on the minimum pay within the
pay-band (PB 1,2,3 or 4) or the minimum of pay of the pay-scale applicable to
various grades and ranks. Each pay band consists of several pay scales. The
Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) had however ruled in favour of pensioners
and had directed re-fixation of pension from January 2006.

An anomaly
committee headed by the Cabinet Secretary had finally corrected the anomaly but
the arrears of the corrected pension were directed to be released by the
government only with effect from September 24, 2012 rather than January 1,
2006.

When the decision
of the CAT was challenged before the Delhi High Court, it was again directed by
the High Court that arrears would flow from the date of inception of the
anomaly, that is, January 1, 2006 and not September 24, 2012. The government
had challenged the decision of the Delhi High Court by way of an SLP before the
Supreme Court but the SLP was also dismissed.

A similar case
filed by Maj Gen K Khorana for military pensioners is pending before the
Chandigarh Bench of the Armed Forces Tribunal. Sources said the DoPPW had
earlier supported the demands of pensioners but the same had been opposed by
the Department of Expenditure in the Ministry of Finance.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20131118/nation.htm#9

Army coup story
came from a fertile brain: VK Singh

Mumbai, November 17

Former Army chief
General VK Singh has dismissed the story of an alleged coup attempt by Indian
army in January 2012 as the product of a "very fertile brain" and
said it was at "somebody's behest".

"That (coup
bid) story was at the behest of somebody," he said. "A routine
movement which is meant to test certain units for their efficiency for certain
tasks, if that gets construed (as coup), then God help us," he said. The
former Army chief was speaking at the launch of his autobiography,
"Courage and Conviction", at the 'Literature Live' literary festival
here last evening.

Asked if it was
necessary to have live missiles as part of the movement, General Singh replied,
"Obviously. You move with the complete ammunition. You don't take duds
with you. How will you know the timing taken to draw those missiles. How will
you get the lessons," he said. "This was a story which came out from
a very "fertile" brain," he said. "When you mobilise, then
you mobilise with everything," General Singh added.

To a query on the
"phobia" about the armed forces in government, the retired Army chief
said, "This phobia or this paranoid feeling... I have talked about it in
the book.” — PTI

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20131118/nation.htm#10

DRDO job scam: Antony recommends CBI probe

New Delhi,
November 17

Defence Minister A
K Antony has recommended a CBI probe into an alleged recruitment scam in DRDO
where several senior officers including two of its former chiefs are under the
scanner.

The Defence
Minister has recommended a CBI probe into the alleged recruitment scam in which
two former DRDO chiefs and a former Chief Controller of the organisation are
under scanner for allegedly giving jobs to their kins in alleged violation of
rules and regulations, sources said here today.

The vigilance wing
of the Defence Ministry had been investigating the alleged wrongdoings in
recruitment in the premier defence research agency for over a year. Recently, a
Director-rank officer of the DRDO was under scanner for his alleged role in an
appointment made against the laid down procedures and was suspended hours
before his retirement from service in May.

The official, a
senior scientist, was suspended by the department as an inquiry was pending
against him in a recruitment-related case where he allegedly recruited his own
daughter in the organisation. The matter had come to light after the Central
Vigilance Commission (CVC) recommended action against two DRDO officials for
their alleged role in the case. The official suspended was involved in
promotion and selection of scientists in the organisation. — PTI

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2013/20131118/edit.htm#5

Pakistan apprised
of LoC concerns

There has been no
progress on the issue of border violations

T.V. Rajeswar

Pakistan Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif's Foreign Affairs Adviser, Sartaj Aziz, arrived in Delhi
on November 10 to participate in the 11th Asia-Europe Meeting of Foreign
Ministers. External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid met the Pakistani envoy on
November 12 and expressed Delhi’s disappointment with the manner in which
Pakistan had conducting itself on various crucial issues. For starters,
Khurshid made it very clear to Sartaj Aziz that peace and tranquility on the
Line of Control was one of the most important confidence-building measures
which had been regrettably ignored by the Pakistan Government and its armed
forces.

Starting in
mid-January 2013 the border incidents had been described as the worst bout of
fighting in the region in nearly 10 years. Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister
Omar Abdullah said that a total of 136 ceasefire violations had been reported
in 2013 alone, the highest in the past eight years.

Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh had two brief meetings with his Pakistani counterpart on October
5 and 11 in New York when these border violations were specifically mentioned
by Dr. Manmohan Singh and requested Nawaz Sharif to rein in the Pakistani
forces and ensure peace on the Line of Control. Regrettably, there has been no
progress in the matter.

The attitude of
Nawaz Sharf towards the border violations has come in for serious doubt. While
returning from his visit to Russia and China, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
told media persons on his special aircraft that he was disappointed with the
Pakistan Prime Minister since it was specifically agreed at the New York
meetings that peace and tranquility should be maintained on the border.

Sartaj Aziz
briefly met Dr. Manmohan Singh on November 13 as a matter of courtesy. Manmohan
Singh did not say anything else to Sartaj Aziz since Salman Khurshid had
already made it clear that for meaningful talks with India, Pakistan should
demonstrate its good faith and behaviour on the Line of Control.

Sartaj Aziz had
another agenda since he met as many as four delegations of Kashmiri
secessionist leaders at the Pakistan High Commission on November 10. The two
factions of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and
Syed Ali Shah Geelani took part in the discussions held at the Pakistan High
Commission in Delhi.

Pakistan’s
attitude towards India on basic issues has not undergone any change. In respect
of India as well as America Pakistan’s attitude has been inscrutable. The case
of the death of the Pakistan Taliban chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, in a drone
attack carried out by America is a clear example. Mehsud was an agent of
al-Qaida and was responsible not only for the attacks on the NATO troops but
also the audacious bombing at New York’s Time Square. Pakistan summoned the
American Ambassador and gave him a dressing down over the drone attack and killing
of Hakumullah Mehsud.

A Western diplomat
commented that any normal country would be celebrating the drone attack but
Pakistan remained confused. Pakistan depends on America for financial support,
while resenting the American strategy in the region, notably over Afghanistan
and over America’s warm tie-up with India. Intriguingly, the Pakistani Army
issued a condemnation of the drone attack on Hakumullah Mehsud. It was revealed
that when Nawaz Sharif visited Washington soon after he became the Prime Minister
last year, he quietly agreed to the continuance of drone strikes in the lawless
Waziristan area. The Pakistan Army Chief, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, is nearing the
end of his term and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has the onerous task of finding
his successor. In the interim period, he does not feel confident enough to go
in for any initiatives towards peace with India.

Shyam Saran,
former Foreign Secretary during the time of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao,
recently disclosed that Nawaz Sharif had sent a messenger to Rao conveying that
India would see a qualitative change in the situation on the ground. This was
with a particular reference to cross-border terrorism then afflicting Kashmir
and the continuing violence along the Line of Control.

Fast track to July
2013 and Shahryar Khan came to Delhi, again as the Pakistan Prime Minister’s
special envoy. And now Sartaj Aziz has come, bearing more or less the same
message. The sequence of events is different but the constant factor of Prime
Minister Nawaz Sharif being the same all speaks of one thing that nothing has
changed in Pakistan and there is no indication of anything happening in the
foreseeable future.

In this context,
the recent revelations of Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s special envoy to the US,
are an eye-opener. According to Haqqani, President Barack Obama secretly told
Pakistan in 2009 that he would nudge India towards negotiations on Kashmir in
lieu of it ending support to terrorist groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba and Taliban
but Islamabad rejected the offer. The secret letter was written by Obama to the
then President, Asif Ali Zardari, and the letter was hand delivered by his then
National Security Adviser, Gen (retd) James Jones. Obama wrote in the letter
that America was willing to consider Pakistan as its long-term strategic
partner. Obama told Zardari that fighting India through proxy groups like
Lshkar-e-Toiba was not sustainable any more. Haqqani had written much more
about the futile efforts of

America in his
book “Magnificent Delusions”. If Zardari as well as Nawaz Sharif could not set
their course of action on the peaceful path, there is little hope in doing
business with Pakistan.

As Salman Khurshid
pointed out to Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan has to demonstrate its bona fides by
putting an end to the large number of incidents on the LoC. It is known that
these incidents are meant to provide cover for the infiltration of terrorists
from Pakistan and occupied Kashmir into Jammu and Kashmir. Nawaz Sharif in
coordination with Parvez Kayani has to stop this on the Line of Control. Till
then, India has to be on guard as usual on the Line of Control and elsewhere.

BEIJING: China has
announced plans to cut the size of its 2.3 million strong military by reducing
the number of non-combatant personnel in the People's Liberation Army.

The number of
non-combat personnel in the PLA, the world's largest military, will be reduced
in an effort to optimize its scale and structure, official media reported. The
Chinese military has enlisted singers, dancers as well as athletes in its
non-combat units.

The new roadmap
stated that China will be adjusting and improving the ratio of army officers to
soldiers and the ratio of combat units to non-combat institutions in order to
meet the country's security demands.

The reforms
announced at a key meeting of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) also
stipulated that the military functioned directly under the party, not under the
government like in others countries. The reforms which were approved at last
week's Third Plenum are aimed to build a strong army that "obeys the
Party's command, is capable of winning battles and has a sound work
style", the report said.

Army should not
have been used in anti-insurgency operations in Punjab and Assam as it created
mistrust between security forces and civil society, former Director General of
Police K P S Gill today said.

"Operation
Blue Star in Punjab and Operation Bajrang in Assam were not necessary,"
Gill said.

"The
operations were hijacked from the police administration creating a mistrust
between the police, security forces and civil society. As a result, many
innocent people lost their lives," he added.

The former Punjab
Police chief said that police should have been given a chance to deal with the
problem.

"The police
could have dealt with it, if more power was given to them and if they had
cooperation from all concerned, including the government and the society,"
Gill said during his visit here as the Chief Patron of North East Sports
Foundation.

Operation Blue
Star was carried out by the army to clear the Golden temple complex in Amritsar
of Sikh militants in 1984.

Gill, who had
served in Assam, claimed Bangladeshi infiltration has always been a major
concern in the region and was the main cause of the different agitations.

"There is an
urgent need to check Bangladeshi infiltration as extremists from the North East
have taken advantage of this situation using Bangladesh as a major hideout over
the years to make the region a trouble torn area," he added.

"When I was
Superintendent of Police in Nowgong district, during 1961 to 1964, I detected
about one lakh suspected Bangladeshi nationals," the former police
official said.

Announcement of
Army Chief to be made according to Constitution: Pervaiz Rashid

Federal Minister
for Information and Broadcasting Senator Pervaiz Rashid has said that the
announcement of new Army Chief would be made by the prime minister according to
the timeframe given in the constitution.

In an interview,
the information minister said that the government is confronting challenges on
all fronts including economy, politics, law and order and international
relations. He refused to comment on what Senator Rehman Malik had been doing in
the past but said everyone should condole the incident of Rawalpindi in which
precious lives have been lost. He said those killed in the tragedy were
Pakistanis and it does not make any difference to which sect they belonged.

Pervaiz Rashid
said Chief Minister Punjab Mian Shahbaz Sharif has already ordered a judicial
inquiry to arrive at a conclusion and those found responsible would be made to
face the law of the land.

He regretted that
processions do not remain peaceful in Pakistan which is a very dangerous trend.
What is more worrisome is that sectarianism has crept into state institutions
and personnel. He said as a result no place, including places of worship, is
safe.He said the people of Pakistan are
facing the consequences of mistakes committed by the state.

The information
minister said Ulema were playing their role and the government would welcome
those who would contribute positively.

In reply to a
question he said the prime minister has to fulfill his national
responsibilities and pointed out that the Commonwealth Summit was attended by
heads of governments of other member countries. He said Pakistan has to play
its due role at the international level and the visit of the prime minister was
part of the national responsibilities.